The head of the Police Federation (GdP), Jochen Kopelke, has sharply criticized proposals by Rhineland‑Palatinate Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) to enforce deportations through police action.
Kopelke told the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” (weekday editions) that, according to Poseck, the police should now carry out deportations “consequently with far‑reaching new powers”. He added that, because immigration authorities are not meeting their duties, the police should track, observe and arrest people with deportation orders. “So the police would essentially copy the sinister human‑hunt of the US ICE agency and act in a similar manner” Kopelke said. The GdP rejects this approach outright.
He argued that the police’s mandate is to protect against threats and fight crime, not to perform immigration enforcement. “The immigration authorities and the Federal Office for Migration must finally resolve their own enforcement deficits and not misuse the police for surveillance and mobile‑phone tracking” Kopelke demanded, calling such use antithetical to crime fighting, counter‑terrorism, and rapid emergency response.
Kopelke stressed that police should be empowered to execute the thousands of outstanding arrest warrants for criminals instead of taking over the tasks of immigration authorities.
During a presentation in Wiesbaden on Thursday, Minister Poseck unveiled the Hessian deportation figures for January. He also announced his intention to push for a legal basis at the next ministerial conference that would allow police to conduct mobile‑phone tracking and surveillance of individuals subject to deportation. Deportations most often fail because the persons are not found at their registered addresses; therefore, police need “technical means” to locate them.